


troika, a dream

by unlitmajor (sebbie)



Series: dreams i might turn into stories [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Apocalypse, Experimental Style, F/F, F/M, Science Fiction, Self-Indulgent, Subtext, dream - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:40:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27630866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebbie/pseuds/unlitmajor
Summary: a dream about friendship and love in the face of the world's end
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Original Female Character/Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Series: dreams i might turn into stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020250
Comments: 2





	troika, a dream

The scene starts normally, it is the world known and recognizable, split into a series of seemingly unimportant and disjointed montages.

The sequence ends on the image of a small hand clutching an old pocket watch.

Everything goes dark. We begin in the future. At least, it seems like the future: a civilization that found its place amongst the stars, sequestered in the sprawling darkness of space. But it is, something whispers, a time before time _and_ after time. It is neither past nor present.

Technology has evolved so much that the most extraordinary of humans are, by our standards now, the “least” special ones. These are the humans who were born with their DNAs untouched by genetic editing—no atypical mutations removed, no alterations to make them particularly exceptional.

They simply are, yet they are so much more.

The people of this time believe that the most “normal” human being is the best “specimen;” because they are the only ones that can truly and purely pursue the highest human attainment for improvement and mastery.

And so, we have our protagonist—The Boy—so spoiled and beloved by his parents, envied yet loved by his adopted, older brother. In his youth, his family encouraged and cultivated whatever skill or interest he had. He is equal parts a jack-of-many-trades and a master of most these things.

There are two more people with him, protagonists, too, in their own way.

One of them, The Girl, is not quite special. When she was conceived, the doctors found a mutation in her gene, a defect, that had to be edited so she may be born “normal.” To their people, she is ordinary in the worst of ways, because she was made to be so.

The other girl is someone more extraordinary. She is The Daughter of that time, the heiress of that civilization’s leader. The Father, revered by all, He who is endless, timeless. The Leader who was and has always been. It is said that he was there at the founding of their civilization and that he will be there when it ends.

The Daughter is _particularly special_ because she is Chosen. An orphan who was not born the child of no one, but created to possess the Legacy of her parents, the genes that makes The Father who he is and The Mother who she became at the end of her life.

It is said that The Daughter and The Boy are a match made by the cosmos, destined and bound. They will create the Future together like The Father and The Mother before them. The Perfect Gene, perfection born, and The Ordinary Man, perfection attained.

And The Girl is simply there, and she is filled with yearning.

She is can never be truly perfect and she isn’t truly ordinary.

She simply is.

They all strike an unlikely friendship. They meet in school as children, learning the history of their predecessor’s downfall, and they grow and flourish together.

On the eve of their Coming of Age Ceremony, everything falls apart. The survival of humanity falls upon them, entrusted and shoved into unknowing hands.

The Father is found dead and Eternity begins to unravel. Somehow, they are to be blamed. They embark on a quest to discover the truth of his murder, to fix the fracturing of reality his death created.

Implication and expectation suggests The Boy and Daughter will fall in love as they are saving the world. That they will live happily ever after. Subtext suggests The Girl loves them both. (But she feels like an outsider, as though she doesn’t quite belong with either of them.)

At what you perceive to be the climax, The Boy “dies.”

He sacrifices himself to Continuity, so the universe may not end but thrive. In this, there is no happy ending for him and The Daughter. No forevermore to live together, but perhaps this has always been their fate. That the cosmos will reclaim one while the other lives on.

Everything seems to be as it is meant to be. As though whatever storybook that was opened may be closed, and one may say the ending has been written.

But the world is still falling apart.

(Even after His sacrifice.)

The Girl and The Daughter continue traveling through space and time, reaching imagination’s end trying to fix the Source.

They get to the origin of humanity. Or, maybe, it was the origin of time. The age before the Great Spark created life that burst forth and prospered, life that was just as tragic and doomed.

Time is falling apart.

Time doesn’t quite fall apart.

There is a moment, the quiescence preceding the big bang, when The Girl points to her wrist. There is an old watch there, an item bequeathed to them by The Father that has aided them in their quest.

“Everything is falling apart, except for us. I think,” there is pause, unbidden, a stuttering gasp, “I think I’m distorting time. We’re in a pocket of existence saved for just the two of us.”

The decay continues.

They look, and they see.

There is an inevitability weighing on their shoulders.

Finally, The Daughter speaks:

“It’s me they want,” the words are a murmured revelation. “You have to let me go.”

The Daughter must join The Boy to recreate balance.

He is Continuity.

She is the End.

“I don’t want—” The words die against her tongue, because The Girl knows, somehow, that The Daughter is right. She closes her eyes, pressed tightly against a flood of tears. When she speaks, her voice is small but heavy with grief, “I thought we had more time.”

The Girl is crying, and The Daughter looks upon her with eyes shining with unshed tears. Her lips are pressed into a tight smile, sad and utterly brave.

The Daughter touches The Girl’s face and with certainty, declares, “We’ll have more time.” Softly bidding, she continues, “You just need to let me go.”

And so, The Girl, with her tears still pouring down her face and the memory of The Daughter smiling at her painted on her eyelids, does as she is asked.

They are enveloped by a bright light, warm and all encompassing. Time and Creation fluctuates and remolds around the two of them.

The Girl can feel an unspoken farewell pressed against her lips, the ghost of a kiss of a beloved she can no longer see. She can still feel the heat of The Daughter’s palm on her face.

He is Continuity.

She is the End.

And The Girl is the Beginning.

When she opens her eyes, she is a young girl once more; a high schooler out with her classmates on a field trip, ready to board the bus to their next destination.

She is holding a pocket watch in her hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Dreamt: 8 June 2020 5:46 AM  
> Edited: 24 October 2020 3:34 PM


End file.
